Faust – Méphistophélès – Bayerische Staatsoper

On his futile search for the meaning of life, the ageing scholar Faust makes a pact with the Devil. Méphistophélès buys his soul and promises him eternal youth and love. Faust falls in love with Marguerite, however she soon leaves him. After she has killed their child, Marguerite succumbs to madness, but emerges morally superior from the encounter with Faust.

Of the numerous scorings of the most famous material in the history of German literary, the opera by the Frenchman Charles Gounod is perhaps the best known. In the 19th century the French opera developed an immense fondness for the German material, but it was often very free with the restructuring for the libretto. From the original the successful French librettist duo, Michel Carré and Jules Barbier (also the authors of the text of Les Contes d’Hoffmann) actually made a most effective opera text with a pronounced dramaturgy of contrasts – drinking scenes are contrasted with intimate ballads, soldier choirs with the church service hymns of supplication. Not least of all because of its immortal arias, after Bizet’s Carmen, Gounod’s Faust has become the most successful French opera.